Deutsche Bank stock falls despite reporting jump in Q1 profits

Deutsche Bank stock fell 3% on Friday despite reporting a big jump in profits as its topline continued to shrink, resulting in a lower full-year outlook for the latter.

For the first three months of the year, the lender posted a 48% jump in net income versus the year-earlier period to reach €178m, even as its net revenues dropped by 9% to €6.4bn.

"Our continued cost discipline helped us offset lower revenues and we are on track to meet our cost target of 21.8bn in 2019," said Deutsche boss, Christian Sewing.

Critically, first quarter revenues at the ailing Corporate and Investment Banking unit declined for an eighth straight year, shrinking by 13% to €3.33bn.

Within that, income from securities trading shrivelled by 19%, marking its worst start to the year since the financial crisis, admittedly amid big cutbacks but with some of Deutsche's largest investors calling for larger ones.

At the Private & Commercial bank meanwhile, revenues declined by 5% to €2.51bn and at the Asset Management arm by 4% to €525m.

Nevertheless, the latter managed to reverse the client fund outflows seen in 2018, recovering €2.5bn after losing €22.3bn during the previous year.

And in remarks to analysts on Friday, Sewing dropped the heaviest hint yet that the lender might be open to deals involving its coveted asset management arm.